Plus get our latest book recommendations, author news, and competitions right to your inbox.
Published by She Writes Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
“I’ll kill the first person who comes through this door.” My father grips a baseball bat in his meaty hands.
It is 1962 and Diane is three years old when her violent father moves their family—her, her pregnant mother, and her six siblings—to a remote farm in Upstate New York. There, she grabs the reader by the hand and takes them to the broken-down barns, barren fields, and rows of bunk beds in her rat-infested attic bedroom as she questions all that feels wrong about her new world. She watches her ever-pregnant mother grow emotionally colder with each new baby and wonders, Where is she when he swings his fists, his steel-toed boot, or a crowbar? Forced to perform adult manual labor in between the erratic beatings she and her siblings pound on one another to release their own aggressions, she asks herself, Is this what we’ve become? What I’ve become?
Narrated in the ever-hopeful voice of a child, The Taste of Anger explores in raw, unflinching detail how years of isolation, oppression, and the threat of retaliation create an environment in which family secrets are guarded at all costs. Tension is palpable with the turning of each page, ensuring that the reader won’t let go of Diane’s hand until she gets an answer to her most urgent question of all: Who will rescue us?
It is 1962 and Diane is three years old when her violent father moves their family—her, her pregnant mother, and her six siblings—to a remote farm in Upstate New York. There, she grabs the reader by the hand and takes them to the broken-down barns, barren fields, and rows of bunk beds in her rat-infested attic bedroom as she questions all that feels wrong about her new world. She watches her ever-pregnant mother grow emotionally colder with each new baby and wonders, Where is she when he swings his fists, his steel-toed boot, or a crowbar? Forced to perform adult manual labor in between the erratic beatings she and her siblings pound on one another to release their own aggressions, she asks herself, Is this what we’ve become? What I’ve become?
Narrated in the ever-hopeful voice of a child, The Taste of Anger explores in raw, unflinching detail how years of isolation, oppression, and the threat of retaliation create an environment in which family secrets are guarded at all costs. Tension is palpable with the turning of each page, ensuring that the reader won’t let go of Diane’s hand until she gets an answer to her most urgent question of all: Who will rescue us?
Product Details
- Publisher: She Writes Press (June 25, 2024)
- Length: 256 pages
- ISBN13: 9781647426859
Browse Related Books
Raves and Reviews
“Powerful and gripping, The Taste of Anger is like a car wreck you can’t look away from. The narrative opens with a tension that doesn’t subside until the very last paragraph. This is a distinct and original work that refreshingly offers a straight narrative without excuse or analysis.”
—The BookLife Prize
“This is a memoir with a brilliant narrative, studded with a host of images that will remain with me for a long time. . . . there is the indomitableness of the spirit.”
—Clem Cairns, founder of Fish Publishing
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Taste of Anger eBook 9781647426859